Martha secured a job in a large house as a domestic servant, but her emotions and future security were dependent on a married man with a wife and nine children. In April of 1906, Arthur Morris’s marriage finally broke down irrevocably, and the couple parted. Arthur Morris retained custody of his five youngest children. Martha, Arthur, and the children moved into a dilapidated cottage in East Perth.
Divorce was not in the cards as it was expensive, scandalous, and controversial. Martha and Arthur pretended to their neighbors that they were married and the children, in order to keep up the pretense, were ordered to call Martha, ‘Mother’ ‘Living in sin’ was universally condemned as immoral. One can only suppose that Martha’s pink-tinted dreams of life with Arthur must have quickly become a disappointment. Living in a ramshackle cottage with the daily never-ending chores of housework in near poverty, and Arthur’s frequent absences away working leaving her in total charge of five resentful children, Martha spent long, lonely, days without family or friends for comfort and support.
In 1907, a diphtheria epidemic raced through Perth. In April, all four of the youngest children: Annie, Olive, Arthur, and George, from the ages of five to fourteen, caught-diphtheria.
Diphtheria is a terrible disease which is highly transmissible. It spreads through respiratory droplets, and it causes death by releasing, throughout the blood, bacterial toxins. The bacterium most commonly infects the nose and throat. The throat infection causes a gray to black, tough, fiber-like covering, which can block the airways. Any breaking of the swollen tissues in diphtheria-infected throats can cause deadly toxicity to the whole body. Dr. James Cuthbert, the family doctor, visited Martha at home frequently during this critical illness as Martha struggled to look after four feverish, whining, sick children. The children recovered, and Dr. Cuthbert commended Martha for her dedication and unselfishness at nursing the children back to health at the expense of her own health.
But Annie had a relapse. Dr. Cuthbert visited and gave an anti-toxin to Annie and told Martha to give Annie laudanum in small doses to ease the pain. Annie died in July of 1907. Dr. Cuthbert, on her death certificate, wrote that the cause of death was, “cardiac weakness and epilepsy due to diphtheria.”
In August of 1907, Arthur, Olive, and George, all weakened by their diphtheria illness, caught typhoid. Olive failed to recover and died in October of 1907. Dr. Cuthbert wrote out her cause of death as, “hemorrhage and typhoid.” He also noted an undiagnosed membrane condition in her throat.
Just eight months later, Arthur developed the identical typhoid symptoms that Olive had displayed; diarrhea, vomiting, and a throat infection. He died on October 6, 1908. This time, Dr. Cuthbert ordered an autopsy. Martha requested to be present during the autopsy. Before the autopsy was concluded, Martha halted the procedure as she felt the doctors had carried out enough slicing to get what they needed. The doctor listed cardiac failure, hemorrhage, and bowel ulcerations as having caused the death.
In 1909, during the month of May, the two boys who were still alive had a reunion with their real mother. Shortly after this, the youngest son, fourteen-year-old George, left home and went to live with his real mother. Arthur Morris, not having realized his son had run away, called the police.
The police located George who told them the reason he had run away was that Martha had murdered his brother, Arthur. He claimed that Arthur had confided in him that Martha was dabbing his throat with hydrochloric acid, also known as salt spirits. George also moaned that Martha was serving him bitter tasting drinks of tea that gave him a sore throat and that he was afraid for his life. His father, George claimed, was aware of what was going on and was Martha’s accomplice.
An inspector, Harry Mann, began an investigation. It did not take long for them to discover the couple’s relationship, which was regarded as highly immoral, and all the other lies they had told. Nor did it take long for the neighbors to hear these facts. Martha’s neighbors professed that she had a savage nature and had treated the two young girls cruelly, once hitting Annie so hard that she couldn’t walk.
Inspector Harry Mann heard repeated stories of the children having their throats painted, and Martha’s apparent indifference to their pain and agonizing cries. One neighbor stated that he had spied through the windows and saw Martha standing in front of a screaming child, rocking back and forth as if in ecstasy. The investigation showed that Arthur Morris had bought large quantities of spirits of salts during the time of the children's illnesses, but none since the last death. Given this information, the police obtained permission to exhume the bodies. On the 3rd of July 1909, the exhumed bodies of the three children were found to have diluted hydrochloric acid on their throat tissue.
Martha and Thomas were both arrested for murder, by swabbing the children’s' throats with hydrochloric acid. Martha vehemently claimed innocence, maintaining that she was treating the children for diphtheria. Martha, being plain, middle-aged, and stony faced was to the citizens of Perth the pure embodiment of the deceitful, cold-blooded stepmother who poisoned her step-children; poisoning being considered the most fiendish method of murder imaginable. The citizens of Perth convicted and condemned Martha before her trial had even begun. Her behavior went against all of the Perth values of family, wifely behavior, and motherhood that the society demanded from its women. To the citizens of Perth, Martha, by abandoning her own children for her own lustful ends, was considered a contemptible aberration of nature. Moreover, her deceit and immorality was taken as incontrovertible proof of her sexual depravity and capacity for duplicity to the point of murder. The strength of feeling towards Martha bordered on mass hysteria, as the women of Perth demanded her hanging and worse.
The trial began in mid-September of 1909. The prosecution case was reminiscent of a wicked stepmother fairytale. Dr. James Cuthbert, who had early praised Martha for nursing the children, was now one of the main prosecution witnesses. He blamed her deceit in claiming to be the children’s mother for his failure to suspect foul play earlier. The prosecution said that she had stopped the autopsy before the doctors had examined the throat so her murderous poisoning wouldn’t be uncovered. Martha was the one painted as the perpetrator of the murders, as Arthur’s frequent absences working away from home put her in full control. The judge, Justice Macmillan, pronounced Martha a “moral deformity” to the all-male jury.
Martha Rendell was found guilty of the murder of Arthur James Morris and sentenced to be hanged on the 14th of September in 1909. Arthur Morris was acquitted, as the jury believed that, although he had bought the spirits of salts, he had not been aware of the crimes until after the children’s deaths.
Just twenty days after the guilty verdict was handed down, Martha Rendell was hanged on the 6th of October in 1909 at 8 am. She maintained her innocence until the end. Martha was the third and last woman to be hanged in Western Australia, the only woman executed for child murder, and the only woman to be hanged in Fremantle Prison. Martha is buried at Fremantle Cemetery.
After the trial, it became known that diluted hydrochloric acid was a home remedy used as a mild antiseptic and sometimes applied to the throat to treat diphtheria.
The day after Martha's hanging, an unusual image appeared on the outside of one of the church windows. It is rumored to be a portrait of Martha Rendell watching over the prison.
FRANCES KNORR
Frances (Minnie) Thwaites was born in 1867 on the 6th of November. She was born in Hoxton New Town, Middlesex, England. Her father, William Thwaites, was a respected hat-maker in Chelsea, London and married to Frances Janet, Frances’s mother. She had one older sister.
Frances moved to Sydney, Australia on board the Abyssinia when she was twenty-years-old, for what reason we do not know. On arrival, she found a job as a servant in a large private household before becoming a waitress. While waitressing, she met Randolph Knorr, a German immigrant. They married in November of 1889 and had a daughter. Shortly after her birth, they relocated to Melbourne in 1892. This was during the
great financial depression, and times were hard. Rudi was arrested for petty fraud and sentenced to prison in Adelaide.
Frances was left to bring up her daughter single-handedly. At first, she tried to support them with her dress making skills. Realizing this was not going to bring in enough money, she advertised her services for fostering babies. Frances Knorr changed her address frequently in Melbourne and used both her married and maiden names. She would accept babies for a fee and then attempt to place them elsewhere for a higher fee or try to find homes for them.
When Rudi was finally released from prison, they moved back to Sydney where Frances became pregnant with their second child.
Meanwhile in Melbourne, two child corpses, a boy and a girl, had been found buried in a garden of one of her previous addresses in Moreland Road, Melbourne by the tenant who had moved in after her.
A warrant was put out for her arrest, and she was traced to her home in Sydney and arrested. After the birth of her second child in prison on the 4th of September, 1893, Frances was escorted back to Melbourne.
On April 11th, charged only with murdering the young girl, Frances went on trial in front of Judge Holroyd. Frances pleaded innocence and told the court as she stood in the witness box that she had indeed buried the infants in the garden of Moreland Road to save burial fees but claimed their deaths were due to natural causes.
However, the prosecution claimed and was able to prove that the babies had been killed by strangulation with tape, and the baby boy’s neck had been squeezed to half its usual size. The trial continued for five days.
On the 1st of December, 1893, the jury found Frances guilty. Judge Holroyd sentenced her to death by hanging. As Frances heard the words she cried out,
Her husband Rudi pleaded to the Melbourne governor for clemency for his wife. He claimed that Frances suffered from epilepsy and suffered from severe fits leading to irrational anger and impulses. A petition was also sent to the governor from the 'Women of Victoria', who stated that,
Frances also wrote a letter to the then premier of Australia advising him how to better govern baby-farming to protect the lives of children.
Frances Knorr
Her execution took place on the morning of Monday, the fifteenth of January in 1894.
Shortly before she was led to the gallows, she was heard singing in her prison cell “Abide with Me.” As she was led to the gallows, observers noted that Frances’s look and demeanor had changed considerably since her sentencing. She was barely recognizable. She walked to the gallows firmly and steadily without support. Frances stood serenely as guards tied her dress to her ankles. When she stood on the trap as was normal at executions, the guards asked her if she wished to say anything. She replied,
The hangman then adjusted the noose, the trap was released, and Frances fell seven feet six inches. Death was instant.
KATHLEEN FOLBIGG
Kathleen Megan Marlborough was born on the 14th of June in 1967 to Thomas John Britton and Kathleen Mary Donavan in Sydney, Australia. On January 8th, 1969 Thomas Britton fatefully stabbed Kathleen Donavan twenty-four times in Annandale, a suburb of Sydney, for having walked out on him and their eighteen-month-old daughter Kathleen Megan. Kathleen was made a ward of the court and placed into Bidura, a church Children's Home. Thomas Britton was found guilty of murder and imprisoned. After serving twelve years, Thomas Britton was deported to the United Kingdom. Kathleen Megan remained in the orphanage until the age of three and was then adopted by Mr. and Mrs. Marlborough, a foster family who lived in the suburb of Kotara, Newcastle, New South Wales. Her eldest foster sister, Lea, who was seventeen at the time of Kathleen’s adoption, remembered her as a picture-perfect child with curly blonde hair. She also remembered that Kathleen kept her inner feelings to herself.
In Kathleen’s diaries that were later used against her in her court case she had written:
“Things I remember are not good about my upbringing but the fact remains I had a safe home, food, and clothing. I am a person who had a choice of that or state orphanages all her life-can’t expect much more.”
She, in fact, found life with Mrs. Deidre Marlborough intolerable and left home and school at the age of fifteen in 1982. Other extracts from her diary illustrate her unhappy childhood.
FROM KATHLEEN’S DIARY: “I don’t have many flashes of that time except of fighting, crying, being scared but never allowing myself to show that.”
“Even now I still regard some feelings as a form of weakness, and love was never said or shown to me.”
Kathleen then began working at poorly paid jobs until she met and married, in May of 1987, twenty-five year-old Craig Folbigg, a car salesman. It was shortly before she met Craig that she learned the truth about her real parents which caused her, as one could imagine, quite a shock.
FROM KATHLEEN’S DIARY: “I was 16 before I found out any of this. So, yes, I’ve had questions about who I was for a very long time.”
At another point on the subject of her father she wrote:
FROM KATHLEEN’S DIARY: “The only thing left undone in my life is my real father. Unless someone decides to be compassionate and tell me about him one day, it will remain unknown.”
After Kathleen and Craig got married, they bought a house in Mayfield, which was a suburb of the city of Newcastle, New South Wales. Within twelve months of being married, Kathleen was delighted to find herself pregnant and gave birth on February 1st, 1989, to a healthy baby boy they named Caleb. Kathleen remained in the hospital for five days before returning home with the baby.
One morning back home, as Kathleen was feeding Caleb, she noticed he was having trouble breathing. She rushed him to the hospital emergency department where the medical staff diagnosed a lazy larynx.
On February 19th, 1989, at about eight o’clock in the evening, Kathleen tucked Caleb in his crib to sleep. In the middle of the night, at around 3.00 a.m. Craig Folbigg awoke startled by his wife screaming. He leapt out of bed and ran to the baby’s room. Here, he saw his wife standing by the crib screaming hysterically,
“My baby, something is wrong with my baby.”
Little Caleb was dead. He was barely twenty days old. The death was attributed to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome.
Just over six months later, Craig and Kathleen were delighted when Kathleen became pregnant again. On the 3rd of June in 1990, Patrick, another son, was born to Kathleen. Craig Folbigg took three months off work to help Kathleen with the baby.
On October 18th, 1990, Kathleen tucked Patrick up in his crib. His father, Craig, checked on Patrick at around 10 p.m. and found him peacefully sleeping. In the middle of the night, at around half-past three in the morning, Craig was awoken by his wife Kathleen’s screams. Craig rushed into baby Patrick's room where he saw Kathleen standing over the crib, where baby Patrick lay. Craig picked Patrick up and heard labored faint breathing. He began resuscitation while Kathleen called the ambulance. Patrick was rushed to the hospital where he recovered consciousness. However, medical staff diagnosed him as blind and suffering from epilepsy.
Four months later on February 13th, 1991, Craig received a call at work from his distraught wife crying,
“It's happened again.”
Alarmed Craig arrived home at the same time as the ambulance. When baby Patrick arrived at the hospital, he was dead. The autopsy concluded that Patrick’s death had been caused by asphyxiation caused by epilepsy.
Following Patrick’s burial, Craig and Kathleen were unable to live in their house where two of their babies had died and relocated to Thornton, a suburb of the City of Maitland, north-west of Newcastle.
Twelve months later, Kathleen found herself to be pregnant again. And on October 14th, 1992, Craig and Kathleen had their first daughter Sarah Kathleen.
When Sarah was eleven-months-old, she caught a cold. This was causing Sarah difficulty in sleeping and caused her to cry a lot. In the early hours of the morning of the 29th of August in 1993 at about 1:30a.m., Kathleen awoke to use the bathroom. On the
way back to bed, she checked on her daughter and saw her lifeless form. She screamed and awoke Craig. Their first born daughter, Sarah Kathleen, was dead.
A post-mortem was conducted by the chairmen of the sudden infant death syndrome organization. He concluded that Sarah Kathleen’s death was consistent with SIDS.
Devastated, the Folbiggs relocated again. This time they moved to the wine producing area of Singleton in the Hunter Valley.
Here, Craig and Kathleen lived for two years and then Kathleen found herself pregnant for the fourth time. Laura Elizabeth was born on the 7th of August in 1997. Kathleen spent three days in the hospital before returning home with her small daughter. The hospital checked on Laura closely for a number of weeks following her birth, checking on her sleep patterns and breathing, but everything appeared well.
When Laura was nineteen-months-old, she developed a cold. On March 1st, 1999 at around midday Kathleen telephoned for an ambulance reporting her daughter was having difficulty in breathing.
When the ambulance crew arrived at the house, they found Kathleen giving her daughter CPR on the kitchen table. On examination by the ambulance crew, they found that Laura had no pulse and had stopped breathing. She was dead.
An autopsy was performed and in the coroner’s opinion he thought that Laura Elizabeth was too old to die from SIDS. He recorded her cause of death as unknown and requested a police inquiry.
SIDS or Sudden infant death syndrome or crib death is the unexpected, sudden death of a small child, which cannot be resolved even after an autopsy. Such deaths typically happen in apparently healthy infants who appear well when placed in their beds but are later found dead. The death of a baby from SIDS is an extremely distressing experience. Grief may manifest itself in a variety of ways, ranging from withdrawal and anger to physical symptoms. There may be feelings of intense guilt, and family relationships may be badly strained by misplaced blame and by severe and persistent grief.
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